Sunday, April 15, 2012

For the second time in six months, no
raw logs are being exported from Vancouver Island ports this week. Is this related to the troubles of Sino-Forest Corp? The former giant in the Chinese and world
forest industry is facing bankruptcy and fraud allegations. Its impending
demise may cast a harsh light on other forest companies and their accounting methods.

British Columbia’s biggest public-sector pension manager has
joined a proposed class-action lawsuit seeking compensation from the embattled
Chinese timber company.

Sino-Forest, once Canada’s biggest forestry-related company with timber
operations in China, headquarters in Mississauga and stock listings in Canada
and the United States, saw its share value collapse after short-seller Carson
Block targeted the firm with allegations of overstating its holdings*, which
were made by his research firm Muddy Waters LLC.

In an emailed statement, bcIMC said it joined the suit because “we believe
that our clients and the Canadian marketplace were deceived.”

*"Overstating its holdings" means claiming it had forests where there were none. Is this the start of a new downturn in forest commodities? Time will tell.

Monday, March 19, 2012

The province has been overruling its own advisory committee on raw log exports, according to reports. From the Vancouver Sun, March 14:

The B.C. Liberal government has, since December, been exporting raw
logs that its own advisory committee has been saying should be going to
producers in B.C.

On Tuesday, New Democratic Party leader Adrian
Dix said the Timber Export Advisory Committee (TEAC) determined last
December that logs from Quatsino Sound on Vancouver Island should be
sold to Teal-Jones of Surrey instead of being shipped overseas.

But
Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations Steve
Thomson overruled that recommendation, Dix said, allowing the logs to be
sold into foreign markets.

The ministry said that staff overturned TEAC recommendations on 86
applications in December and January, covering 70,145 cubic metres.

In
February, the ministry stopped referring anything to the committee from
the west coast of Vancouver Island, as they expected the decisions
would be overturned. There were 47 offers in February, comprising 35,532
cubic metres.

Meanwhile, the Globe and Mail reports that a political backlash against raw log exports has forced the Liberals to launch a review.

There has been a shift in the long-running battle over raw log
exports in British Columbia, to the advantage of industries that profit
from shipping logs overseas. The winner of this fight – within the
forest industry and within the B.C. government – will be declared this
spring.

Log exports roughly doubled last year, bringing much-needed
cash into coastal logging companies, but creating a political backlash
in the process. So, as with so many conflicts facing the Clark
government, the province launched a review, which is due in the next few
months.

“I don’t think anybody in British Columbia wants to see us
exporting non-milled logs,” Premier Christy Clark said this week. “The
point of the review is making sure we can manage, and hopefully
diminish, the amount of raw log exports in British Columbia.”

A few of the target areas are highlighted below. Left to right: Nitinat Lake, Upper Walbran Valley, Gordon River, and the ridge above China Beach, which is being logged by a partnership with the Pacheedaht First Nation.

The Kyuoquot Valley is also being logged, Wu notes. The Friends of Clayoquot Sound have issued an alert for logging on Flores Island, in the heart of Clayoquot.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Update: Cortes activists Tzeporah Berman and Carrie Saxifrage report that plans to clearcut parts of Cortes Island are postponed until September 2012. Representatives from Island Timberlands assured them at a meeting this week that "the earliest they would begin logging is in September."